


Centering

by recrudescence



Category: Firefly
Genre: Community: purimgifts, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-01
Updated: 2010-01-01
Packaged: 2017-10-05 14:39:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/42794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/recrudescence/pseuds/recrudescence
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>River takes matters into her own hands.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Centering

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cosmogyral](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmogyral/gifts).



  
  
  
**Entry tags:** |   
[author: recrudescence](http://community.livejournal.com/purimgifts/tag/author:+recrudescence), [day 2](http://community.livejournal.com/purimgifts/tag/day+2), [fandom: firefly](http://community.livejournal.com/purimgifts/tag/fandom:+firefly), [for nextian](http://community.livejournal.com/purimgifts/tag/for+nextian)  
  
---|---  
  
_**Centering (Firefly)**_  
**Fandom:** Firefly  
**Title:** Centering  
**Author:** [](http://recrudescence.livejournal.com/profile)[**recrudescence**](http://recrudescence.livejournal.com/)  
**Written for:** [](http://nextian.livejournal.com/profile)[**nextian**](http://nextian.livejournal.com/)  
**Rating:** R  
**Pairings:** River/Kaylee, Mal/Simon  
**Disclaimer:** I do not own or profit from any of the source material.   
**Word Count:** 757

Kaylee loses weight, which is a bad sign. Kaylee can always find some way to make protein semi-edible. River tries, concocting something out of vegetable powder and rice that doesn't smell too terrible, and takes it to her. "It isn't your fault." Feeding her triteness is about as effective as feeding her a decent meal.

"So gorram stupid," Kaylee mumbles, twisting a lock of hair around her finger. River can feel the split ends. She hasn't been letting Inara take care of her anymore. "He could've _said_."

He should have. Simon tries too hard to be polite and sometimes it just tangles up the truth. River folds Kaylee's fingers around the spoon—the heaviest one, so she has to lift it and be a little stronger—and climbs back out of her bunk to go find him. She can fix things.

"I'm going to have sex with Kaylee," she declares firmly.

Simon, the doddering oaf, just stares at her like she's gone mad.

"You should sleep with Mal," she adds. "He'd like that. He thinks you'd be proficient."

"I am not hearing this."

"Sometimes being direct is the most intelligent approach," River tells him, pretending not to notice when she senses the heat surging under the skin of his cheeks.

Kaylee feels too fragile when they peel back her coveralls, a girl-shaped simulacrum of sadness, and it's such a familiar feeling from such an unfamiliar source that River's head hangs heavy with the significance.

"You're the light in the dark for us," she tells Kaylee solemnly, guiding a nightdress over her shoulders. "Orbiting nothing, when you're pivot point. It's an honor, but even the center of the universe gives way sometimes."

Kaylee holds onto River like she's afraid of spinning out of orbit anyway. She doesn't want to blame her brother, but River can see that Kaylee can see him old, aristocratic white streaks in his hair, living a prosperous life with some faceless entity that isn't her at all.

It's strange kissing Kaylee with Simon clutching at every corner of her mind, but River thinks she can pry his hands away with touches and time. It's even stranger kissing Kaylee when she's crying. Kaylee is their sunrise, their metronome, and if the rhythm is off then everything is off. River's heard Jayne say that if Kaylee ain't happy, ain't nobody happy. Jayne can be just as bright, in his own way. She might tell him that someday, if she thought he would appreciate it.

With time, Kaylee lets her in. With a little more time, she can feel Simon's guilt and regret melt away. Mal's touches are too warm for anything to stay frozen in place for long. She ventures to tell Kaylee this one night and, when it gets her a giggle in response instead of a sigh, she's sure things are okay.

River knows what she is, most days, when there isn't so much intrusive ringing in her ears. She's a conglomerate. A composite. A muddled mix of too many sensations who sometimes forgets to be polite or brush her hair or wear a bra and doesn't realize it until Kaylee corners her in the engine room and touches her nipples through her dress and calls her names that make River feel hot and strange and needy between her ears and between her thighs.

But Kaylee doesn't ever say she minds it, so sometimes River does it on purpose. One time she decides not to wear anything under her dress at all and the thrill of it makes her giddy-fidgety all day and when Simon asks if she's feeling all right all she can do is laugh.

"So gorram stupid," Kaylee teases her, and the skirt tickles River's knees when she pushes it up. The stiff ruffles of Kaylee's layer-cake dress are scratchy on her ankle when she slides a foot up the far wall where it's hanging, but that's okay because it's something of Kaylee's and Kaylee doesn't have a thing to her name that isn't at least a little bit shiny. She heard Jayne say so once.

River twists the syllogism around in her head before she goes to sleep, tries it on like a party dress and curls up against it like Kaylee's body: River is one of the things Kaylee has to her name now and Kaylee doesn't have a thing to her name that isn't at least a little bit shiny. She likes the logic of that.

Someday, maybe she'll go up to Jayne and tell him it's true.

\--

  


 

_Hope is the thing with feathers   
That perches in the soul,   
And sings the tune--without the words,   
And never stops at all,_

And sweetest in the gale is heard;   
And sore must be the storm   
That could abash the little bird   
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,   
And on the strangest sea;   
Yet, never, in extremity,   
It asked a crumb of me.

 

**Photo: Rodney Smith  
Poem: Emily Dickinson**


End file.
